I’m going to go out on a limb by suggesting two ideas about the nonprofit and social service sectors: 1) There are plenty of well-intended, poorly run nonprofits whose extremely admirable missions prevent them from going under; 2) most nonprofit professionals have a chip on their shoulder about how comparably straightforward measuring value and success seems in the for-profit realm. This can lead to a near-fanatical emphasis on fundraising as a proxy for impact or to a reduction of value solely in for-profit terms (whether it be service dollars provided, units served or gross income).

So, how can we actually measure meaningful impact in the long term, and how is this reconciled with the more immediate returns promised to donors? The focus areas of many nonprofits and impact-oriented firms ― for example, education, health and the environment ― are long-term investments by design, and the ROI can take years or decades to be realized. Is it irresponsible to dismiss short-term metrics in favor of longer term faith? Is the nonprofit sector responding to poorly designed systems better addressed by the government and for-profit market?

Last summer, we thought the hard part was over. Little did we know that it was just the beginning. Over the past six months, we have racked up a list of accomplishments that includes:

90 stakeholder conversations

3 pivots (which feel like many more)

20 different logo designs

5 domain name purchases (plus a list of over 100 more)

5 case competitions

200 versions of a pitch deck

75 versions of a business plan

1 surprise partnership

(We also went through one potential lawsuit — but that is a story for another day, maybe a fireside chat.)

The point is, after all that, we failed to get one customer and we failed to make a single dollar of revenue. So, what do we have to show for ourselves outside of a pretty deck with pictures culled from Google Images?

The failure to execute was a disappointment but remained our greatest opportunity. We confess that when it came to pounding the pavement and knocking on doors, we hid behind our pitch deck and business plans. Don’t get us wrong: We are not discounting what we have done — we have actually accomplished quite a bit. But if we could trade it all in, we’d trade it for one customer. The time to execute is now.

UCLA Anderson MBA students conductApplied Management Researchfield study projects in lieu of a thesis. Anderson gives full-time students the Business Creation Option in which entrepreneurs launch companies while still in school. Team Connoisseur researched the restaurant landscape in L.A. to devise a delicious formula for picking local dining options that improves on standard rating sites.

The restaurant search process is broken. With so many restaurants in L.A., people feel overwhelmed, and current websites like Yelp prove untrustworthy and cumbersome for people to sort through.

Connoisseur is a mobile app designed to offer personalized restaurant recommendations based on your dining history.

To gather seed data for our algorithm, the Connoisseur team surveyed 82 respondents to rate all the restaurants they had visited in Santa Monica. We explored multiple methodologies for predicting restaurant scores, including a k-nearest neighbors algorithm (k-NN), in which users are plotted in vector space and the actual physical distance between users is measured. In a k-NN, users with similar restaurant ratings will be closer to each other. We looked to find the five nearest neighbors to any user. Taking the average ratings of these five nearest neighbors, we found the other restaurants that these similar users loved.

We were able to test the viability of this approach by removing some of the data and using the algorithm to predict the deleted scores. This method was most effective when users had rated at least 25 restaurants, meaning once we moved outside of Santa Monica we would need users to rate even more in order to give accurate predictions.

04/07/2017

When you graduate from college wide-eyed and ready to take on the world, no one ever tells you that one day your career choices will be dictated by a mortgage or daycare payments. Whether we realize it or not, at some point in our lives we are forced to make decisions about our priorities, and sometimes career fulfillment is put at the bottom of the list. We are forced to choose between work that matters to us and work that will pay us what we need to survive. A dream career is not only hard to find, but sometimes it’s simply not feasible.

From a young age, we are taught to follow our dreams and pursue our passions. We are not taught, however, that sometimes our dreams will be put on hold to support our parents, to pay off our student debt or to prepare for future plans of buying a home or bringing a child into the world. Sometimes it feels impossible to find a job that is able to support your financial goals as well as your intellectual and emotional needs for growth and fulfillment.

04/05/2017

On April 6, 2017, the Riordan Programs will celebrate three decades of providing pioneering career-based outreach programs for students from underserved communities. This marquee organization is marking its 30th anniversary with its annual gala event and an announcement about the new Riordan Hall of Fame, along with this year’s awards to three exceptional Riordan alumni.

Pauline Fischer, Riordan Fellow ’92, Legacy Award. A media and tech executive who has worked at Paramount Pictures, Netflix and other entertainment companies, Fischer is developing a variety of new projects in the sector.

Victor Viramontes, Riordan Scholar ’91, Excellence in Civil Engagement and Leadership Award. Viramontes serves as the national senior counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), a national civil rights organization headquartered in Los Angeles.

Pauline Fischer, Andrea Mack, Victor Viramontes

“At a pivotal point in my personal and professional development,” says Pauline Fischer (B.A. ’93), “the Riordan Programs were there to provide a foundational experience that was instrumental in the construct of my career. I’m honored to be this year’s recipient of the Legacy Award.”